Noel Whittaker on wealth creation, timeless wisdom and making money simple

You have to decide what you want, and you must spend less than you earn.

Noel Whittaker has been on a mission to make money simple for decades, but this isn’t always easy. With a career spanning several decades, Noel has become a household name in the world of personal finance and investing.

In today’s conversation with Kate Campbell, Noel shares his thoughts on wealth creation, timeless investing wisdom and making money simple.

Kate’s extracts from Making Money Made Simple

In this country, the average person needs only two things to become wealthy: the knowledge of what to do, and the discipline to do those things.

To successfully attain the goal of financial independence, you must buy into four basic principles:

1. Spend less than you earn
2. Take responsibility for your own future
3. Recognise and avoid the major traps that reduce your wealth
4. Get inertia working for you, not against you

Do you think you deserve this knowledge? Many people don’t. This often stems from low self-esteem and a feeling that because of a lack of ability – or because they were not born to a wealthy family – there is no chance for them.

Get used to delayed gratification. Have it today – pay for it tomorrow. And pay you will! Winners exercise discipline.

Principles of Success:

1. Much of the glamour of wealth and fame is an illusion
2. Discipline is the key to success in everything
3. Life is about a lot of the little things that add up
4. Everything worthwhile takes time
5. Never stop learning
6. Start today – but slowly

You need three factors going for you if you want to build up your net assets:

1. Capital that has the ability to increase in value
2. Time for compound interest to work
3. A good rate of return to speed up the compounding process

We reap what we sow. In fact, it should be; we reap far more than we sow.

Few people fail in one massive, traumatic event – it is normally a succession of little things done wrong, or not at all, that builds up to a disaster.

To create wealth for ourselves, we have to make saving and investing a commitment instead of something we try and do with what’s left over.